Ellis: How to force Congress to pass a budget

Nov. 2, 2013

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Weasels. For now, what you need to know is we’re dealing with weasels.

At least, that’s what we were grappling with on Friday. How to get the weasels in Congress under control.

Most weekdays, weather permitting, the nation’s problems get solved here in Sioux Falls between about 12:15 and 1 p.m.

That’s when a group departs from the YMCA on what typically is a four- to seven-mile run through the city. It’s a group of professionals. Small-business owners, some lawyers, government workers, journalists. It’s a nice mix of Democrats and Republicans, along with the journalists who are neither because they think both political parties are parasitic.

The group on any particular day might be as small as two people, and sometimes there might be closer to 10 on a good day. Much of the run is spent hashing out the various problems and coming up with solutions.

Friday’s group was small: Just three of us, a left-of-center Democrat, right-of-center Republican and me. We think we found a solution to put the weasels in Congress under control.

Of late, the noon-run discussions have tended to focus on Congress because that institution is dumb. What’s worse, it likes to flaunt its stupidity for the cable news channels. It can’t pass a budget, its most basic function.

Now, when we’re talking about weasels, we’re not talking specifically about the senators and representatives — although both those bodies certainly contain a healthy number of weasels. We’re talking about the institution. Really, we’re talking about the entire system. The political parties, the lobbyists, the bureaucracy, the special interests, all the groups that have a stake in preserving their power and taxpayer handouts in Washington.

Here’s an example of how weaselly the system is. When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, there was a provision requiring members of Congress and their congressional staffs to obtain health coverage through the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges, rather than through the traditional federal health care plan. Now, I don’t necessarily agree with the provision, at least for the staffers. Why shouldn’t they be able to participate in their employer health plan like the majority of other Americans?

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Regardless, that was the law. But, in an act of weaseldom, the Office of Personnel Management decided that there really isn’t a good definition of a “congressional staffer.” Thus, the office ruled that individual senators and representatives could decide for themselves which members of their staffs were “official” staffers subject to the insurance exchanges, and which were “unofficial” staffers who could stay on the federal health plan. So that means some staffers will end up on the exchanges — and probably pay more money for coverage — while their counterparts in other offices will be allowed to say on the federal plan.

See, the system is corrupt.

And they can’t even pass a budget. So, that’s where the Friday run group came up with a solution. We need an amendment to the Constitution that requires Congress to pass a budget by Oct. 1 each year. That was what the Democrat in the group proposed. Certainly, others have come up with a similar proposal.

But what happens, I asked, if Congress doesn’t pass a budget by Oct. 1? Who would make them do it?

His response: Cover the clock. That’s a reference to how the Legislature in Pierre handles its annual budget if it can’t pass one by midnight on the last day of the session. The lawmakers put a cloak, or jacket, or something that covers the clock so they can pretend they haven’t violated the law by not passing a budget.

I didn’t think that would work for Congress. For one thing, nobody wants to be in Pierre, so lawmakers have an incentive to pass a budget, even if they go past midnight on the last legislative day. They want to get out of there.

It wouldn’t work for Congress. Many of them love Washington. They don’t want to leave. So they’d simply cover the clocks forever and pretend like it was Sept. 30, even on Christmas.

No, I said, our constitutional amendment needs to have a consequence to force their hands. It needs teeth. I suggested that, if they don’t pass a budget by the deadline, they all face a firing squad.

Well, we pondered it for a bit, maybe a quarter-mile or so, and decided that might be a little extreme.

So we decided this might work: If they don’t pass a budget by midnight — we’ll even give them a few hours of wiggle room and make it midnight in Hawaii — then they automatically trigger a new election on the first Tuesday of November. Every member of the House and Senate would be required to stand for election.

Under this scenario, we’d be having an election on Tuesday. I’m betting a lot of incumbents would lose their jobs.

Maybe you’ve got better proposals. I’m willing to listen. Just remember, they have to be weasel-proof. That’s not easy.